Why your library needs a .org, .com, and .net!

摘要

Today's libraries offer more services and information resources than ever before. Why then is it so hard for us to publicize and/or market these services to our users? In studies about how adolescents use the Web,(FN1) it is clear that, beginning in our secondary schools, multimillion dollar marketing campaigns manipulate people into beginning and ending their online research with the dot-coms. And why shouldn't they? These sites are the most-prolific and best-marketed. But libraries can begin to change their outlook on where their "e-presence" begins and ends by thinking about how people access their Web sites. We did. Located in Auburn, Alabama, the Auburn University (AU) Libraries are responsible for the information needs of an ever-growing population (16,000-plus) of 18- to 24-year-old undergraduate students. We realize that in order to capture the market for their information needs, our libraries will have to change their e-presence as our major demographic population changes its information-seeking techniques. We've taken one step toward this by creating a definable top-level domain for our libraries.This type of strategy has already been employed by places such as the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its storyplace.org and book-hive.org sites serve as steppingstones toward competent Web usage for students at an early age. Here at Auburn University Libraries, we purchased the top-level domains aulibrary.org, aulibrary.com, and aulibrary.net to use in publicity campaigns for library-sponsored events. It was fairly simple. A quick look in the domain registry WHOIS(FN2) database turned up the fact that "aulibrary" was available. The libraries' administrations, in conjunction with my office, decided that we would buy all three domains (.org, .com, and .net) and then discover the best way to utilize them.